THE GASLIGHT ELECTION

 

[Published on Newsmax]

2020 is the single most important election since 1860.

This is not hyperbole.  The future of America’s representative democracy is at stake.

The Left plans to change fundamental policies that will cripple earnings and economic vitality.  More ominous, the Left is planning to change the rules that have governed America since 1789.  Their sole purpose is to achieve permanent power.

More frightening is that these threats are being successfully hidden from the electorate.

America’s news media took a sharp left turn in the 1960s.  During the 21^st Century, what is considered the “Mainstream Media” (MSM) dropped all pretense of being professional journalism.  They are overtly the Left’s propaganda arm.  “News anchors” and talk show moderators are no longer selected from working reporters, but from career political operatives.  The result is an echo chamber of anti-Americanism, and now anti-Trump.

This Leftist echo chamber now dominates over 95 percent of television, radio, print, and digital “news”. Except for a handful of conservative radio personalities, Fox Cable news shows, and blogs, the Left’s echo chamber shapes an alternate reality that may propel the Democrats into the White House and a Senate Majority.

The classic 1944 movie “Gaslight” is about a diabolical villain who creates an alternative reality to drive his victim insane to reap riches.  The term “Gaslighting” is based on this process of creating a fraudulent reality so the victim makes wrong decisions to their detriment.

That is what 2020 is about.  It is the Gaslight Election.

Since the Summer of 2016, the Left’s echo chamber has created a narrative, fueled by the bogus Steele Dossier, that Russian leaders are puppeteers controlling Trump and his inner circle.  Wild assertions went unchallenged.  A fake whistle blower, coached by Congressional Democrats and shaped by secretly backdated regulations, launched a reckless Impeachment. 

While the entire scheme of lashing Trump to Russia, and then Ukraine, was exposed as a fraud, the Left’s echo chamber barely reports it.  In fact, most of the echo chamber reprises Russia, unchallenged, whenever it can.  Tragically, Judicial Watch has had to sue Trump agencies to force the release of exculpatory information.  Career bureaucrats have successfully delayed these facts from entering the public domain.

At the same time, former Vice President Biden is on video bragging about doing exactly what was the basis of Trump’s Impeachment to laughter and applause by the Washington, DC elite.  Efforts to hold Biden accountable have been thwarted by FBI and intelligence officials for years.  The Lefts’ echo chamber remains silent.  It is just as important to not report something.

The Lefts’ echo chamber also set the ultimate trap for Trump’s re-election.  COVID-19 remains Trump’s Achilles Heel because scary and highly inaccurate models generated by the Imperial College on March 16, 2020 forced America’s economic suicide.  The Left’s echo chamber demanded that Trump shut down his booming economy to prevent millions of deaths.  The model turned out to be fundamentally flawed.  Now the Left’s echo chamber blames Trump for this year’s economic downturn. Leftist Governors use their independence under Federalism to enforce draconian lockdown measures not based on current science.  This slows the economic recovery through election day.

Biden, Harris, and their media allies, wear masks every time they are on camera.  They wear masks when they are outdoors and over thirty feet from others.  No science or health organization recommends this.  It serves as a symbol for COVID-19 remaining a dire threat and Trump is to blame.  The Lefts’ echo chamber makes no effort to question this shameless propaganda ploy.  Instead it promotes it.

The Left creates visual equivalency by providing only tight shots of Biden and Harris at their podiums, ignoring the fact that less than ten people are in the audience.  Trump’s 20,000+ rallies are either not covered at all or show only tight podium shots.  Biden’s countless lies about his attending Black churches and colleges, his groundless assertions, and his fiction about awarding medals, remain unchallenged.  His radical agenda for the Green New Deal, tax increases, and aggressive gun control goes unreported.  Alternatively, debunked accusations, like Trump hating the armed forces, dominate news cycles.

The Left over-samples registered Democrats, sometimes over 50% to only 38% or less for Republicans, to generate polls showing Biden trouncing Trump.

The Left’s Gaslight Election may succeed because over 50 million have early voted, just as facts about the Biden family’s foreign influence peddling is slowly seeping out.  Congressional Republicans’ glacial investigative pace enables the Left’s reality.

 A Democrat sweep in November will be tragic for everyone except the liberal elite. Trump’s tax cuts will be erased, and new taxes added.  Four years of regulatory relief will evaporate.  All of Trump’s government reform Executive Orders will be voided within hours of the Inauguration.  Gun control will rapidly expand. The 1619 anti-American indoctrination curriculum will be forced into every classroom. Illegal aliens will be granted wholesale amnesty and added to the voter rolls.  American energy independence will vanish, and Americans will suffer from the absurd policies that have made California the land of rolling blackouts.  Hollywood and Sports celebrities will roar back into prominence, virtue signaling Americans about race relations and carbon footprints.  

Worse, all investigations of Biden, Obama, Clinton, and the Deep State will end within hours of a Biden/Democrat victory, extinguishing any hope that truth will prevail.

WHY 2020 IS SO IMPORTANT

 

[Published on Newsmax]

Anyone still doubting what will happen if the Democrats take the White House and the Senate this November need to look at what just happened in Virginia.

In November 2019, Democrats won the governorship and control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time since 1993. While they had a 10-seat majority in the House of Delegates, their margin in the State Senate was a razor thin two seats.

As 2020 dawned, the newly sworn-in Democrats moved with lightning speed on a broad legislative front. It was a relentless Leftist Juggernaut.

During the 60-day legislative session, Democrats passed 1,900 bills. The governor signed every one of them into law.

Every Leftist dream came true.

First came eviscerating gun rights. The gun control bills were so groundbreaking, Gov. Ralph Northam held a special signing ceremony. The bills expanded background checks to include private sales, created severe penalties for leaving firearms near children, including inside a private home, limited handgun sales to one a month, and created red flag laws.

More importantly, new laws empowered local governments, as Virginia is a "commonwealth," to regulate the possession, carrying, storage or transport of firearms, ammunition, components or any combination of those things, and to ban guns in public spaces, including public buildings, parks, recreation centers and during permitted events.

This included authorizing local governments to establish stricter gun laws than exist at the federal and state level.

A second wave assailed Virginia history and culture. Lee-Jackson Day was eliminated as a state holiday. All protections for Confederate monuments ended.

Then came social legislation. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), long past its ratification deadline, was ratified anyway, providing the 38th state needed for final adoption. A hoped-for court challenge will try to overturn precedent and force the ERA into the Constitution.

The "Virginia Values Act" added sexual orientation and gender identity to all Virginia anti-discrimination laws. It granted the attorney general the power to take action against anyone "engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance" to the rights guaranteed by the new laws.

Abortion rights were dramatically expanded, rolling back existing provisions including a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, ending a requirement that women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound and counseling, eliminating the requirement that abortions be provided by a physician, allowing nurse practitioners to perform them and ending building code requirements on facilities where abortions are performed.

Virginia's felony larceny threshold was raised from $500 to $1,000. Sponsors stated this will lead to fewer Virginians with felony convictions on their records.

Possession of marijuana was decriminalized and replaced with a $25 civil penalty.

The minimum wage went to $9.50 per hour. This will increase to $11 in 2022, $12 in 2023 and by another $1.50 in 2025 and 2026.

Virginia increased its gas tax 5 cents a year for two consecutive years.

A new tax on plastic bags was established.

Finally, they changed the rules for voting. Virginians no longer need to show a photo ID in order to vote, and they no longer need to provide an excuse to cast an absentee ballot.

Virginia became part of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, awarding the state's electoral votes to the national winner of the presidential popular vote, instead of the state's own popular vote.

Democrats have an even longer wish list at the national level, including the "Green New Deal," raising taxes and the minimum wage, and national gun control measures.

They are invoking racism and atoning for the 1619-based "America is a slave nation," to promote reparations and other laws that will eliminate America as we know it. The Left wants to erase freedom of speech in favor of "woke" sensibilities and political correctness and, of course, erase the right to bear arms.

The biggest national movement is to end "institutional racism" and "white privilege" by eliminating the Electoral College, make U.S. Senate seats based on population, granting statehood to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and packing the Supreme Court. 

Every one of these "reforms" is designed to solidify the Left's power forever.

The only thing standing in the way of Democrats recreating the Virginia Juggernaut at the national level is the U.S. Senate's filibuster.

The crusade for ending the filibuster is already underway. Even though it has been integral to the Senate since its founding, it is being portrayed as a recent racist manifestation.

The filibuster is the only protection for minority rights in Congress. Both parties embrace it as they know one day they may be out of power and need it.

The Left is banking on the November election giving them eternal power.

The Use-of-Force Continuum

[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh Sr.]

Editor's Note: The following is by Guest Contributor Donald Mutersbaugh. The tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut brought horror to America just days before the Christmas holidays. The discussion over how to prevent such violent deaths has been swirling every since. Everyone can agree that (1) there will always be highly disturbed people willing to do harm, (2) there are usually warning signs for violent madness and, if properly identified and addressed, may prevent some, but not all, harmful acts, (3) guns, especially high capacity rapid firing ones, amplify the harm done, (4) any object can inflict mass harm in the wrong hands – a bomb made from gasoline and fertilizer killed 168 in Oklahoma City, including 19 children, (5) some mass killers do not need anything other than their hands – John Wayne Gacy strangled most of his young victims, taking six years to murder 33 people, including 17 under the age of 18, (6) a gun culture is not necessary for mass deaths – Norway is hardly an armed nation, yet one person killed 77 people, including 50 under the age of 18. These truisms are not arguments for inaction. They serve to guide civil and informed dialogue towards solutions that make a difference.

It takes a gun to stop a gun. I cannot even begin to tell you in which decade I learned this; but for some reason, some gun control advocates still do not believe it – or at least you would think so when you hear their protestations. One of the things that bothers me the most about those who do not wish to acknowledge this statement is the hypocrisy that surrounds their discussions about gun control. If this statement is not true, why do so many celebrities and other “important” people have armed bodyguards for themselves and their children? If this statement is not true, why don't these bodyguards carry truncheons? Quite frankly it is because deep down they recognize that it takes a gun to stop gun – they just will not conscientiously acknowledge it.

Let me introduce a concept called the use-of-force continuum. These policies generally describe a series of escalating actions that law enforcement officers can use when responding to any situation. It may vary slightly between jurisdictions; but generally, the same escalation steps apply. This is the way the policy recommends an officer’s use of force. Officer Presence: the mere presence of a law enforcement officer often works to diffuse the situation; this may involve placing an offender under arrest. Verbalization: this usually includes nonthreatening commands (let me see your identification), increasing their volume to indicate their seriousness, or other compliance commands (don't move). Empty Hand Control: this includes both soft techniques (grab, restrain) or hard techniques (punches, kicks) – generally offensive techniques and defensive tactics. Less Lethal methods: this includes less lethal technologies to control the situation. For example, a baton or projectile weapon can be used to immobilize an individual. Chemical methods (pepper spray) can be used. And one final method, Conducted Energy Devices (tasers), can be used. Finally, we get to the last method: Lethal Force: this is when officers use deadly weapons (firearms) to control the situation. Note that this does not mean that they have to kill the suspect; but it does allow one final element of control equal to or beyond what any suspect could use when posing a serious risk to the officer or others. Officers are instructed to respond with a level of force appropriate to the situation at hand; it should also be noted that an officer responding to a scene may enter the continuum at a level other than step one and move very quickly through the continuum to a more advanced level as the situation escalates. [This paragraph has been adapted from the National Institute of Justice (within the U.S. Department of Justice) and a class I took at the Citizen’s Police Academy in my hometown.] The one final point to note is this: it takes a gun to stop a gun; it is the ultimate step in the continuum.

Recently, for a variety of reasons, innocent men, women, and children have been slaughtered in different venues. Several recent school shootings may have been prevented or mitigated had the shooter been met by another armed individual. Several people were shot and killed in a movie theater. People have been slain at restaurants. In all of these cases I believe that the gun was not the problem; the shooter was the problem. Whether it was because the shooter forgot to take their medications – or maybe they didn't even realize they needed medication; maybe the person had an abusive childhood; maybe there was a recent stressor that caused the person to snap. Some of these reasons may explain the shooter’s actions; but all of these reasons are irrelevant when there are bodies strewn throughout a classroom, theater, or cafeteria floor.

What if an armed policeman was at the entrance to the school? Further, what if that policeman drew his weapon and killed the shooter before he ever got into the school? Now, let's change the scenario a little; instead of a policeman at the door with a drawn weapon, what if it were the principal? Would everybody feel that this solution is still acceptable? When people talk about gun control, they generally do not include disarmament of police officers. Maybe it is because they are confident that the police officers can implement the use-of-force continuum properly. Still, ultimately, it takes a gun to stop gun. The biggest problem is that most police departments do not have enough police officers readily available at every possible location. Further, not every citizen is capable of or desirous of taking care of themselves in situations involving perpetrators with weapons. People of the United States have always been willing to step up and help others; it is time for us to put aside political correctness and choose the solution that will really work: it takes a gun to stop a gun. I am sure that there would be plenty of volunteers who would willingly accept this responsibility. This doesn't mean armed guards at the entrances; it would mean armed educators within the classrooms. The challenge will be to find people who are reliable and consistently able to discharge the responsibilities given to them concerning weapons usage in the protection of themselves and their fellow citizens.
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Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr. earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and his Master of Business Administration degree from Mary Washington College. He is the former Associate Administrator of Information Resources for the U.S House of Representatives under Speaker Newt Gingrich.